Conception Island National Park
FOXY LADY is anchored in West Bay, Conception Island. No island in the world is more beautiful, and the creek is full of turtles. The older Long Island fishermen still call Conception “Turtle Island.”
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We have had a busy month, cruising to Long Island, Rum Cay, back to Long Island, and out to Conception. On our first visit to Long Island we rode out some bad weather in Thompson Bay and tagged a few green turtles in Salt Pond and McKanns and resupplied for our trip to Rum Cay.
The crossing to Rum Cay was quiet, but that was the last calm day before a period of strong northeasterly weather which limited our turtle research to a good survey of the Cottonfield Point habitat and two tagged hawksbill turtles. As usual, though, the snorkeling was spectacular. And when you make a salad of Rum Cay conch and season it with Rum Cay salt and bird peppers, you know you are in the finest kind of place. We met with new and old friends (including the Repperts who had sailed down from Spanish Wells) and celebrated Barbara’s birthday at Sumner Point with a pot luck dinner for fifty people. Thank you, Bobby Little!
The Rum Cay All-Age School is small and remote, but the hospitality is wonderful, and the students were very enthusiastic about our turtle studies and Flat Stanley.
Friday evening was the beginning of Rum Cay Day. The LADY EMERALD arrived with friends and relatives and a hundred people had supper by the government dock. The food was delicious. The ladies gave all the credit to their Rum Cay salt.
We left Rum Cay on the 28th, and after an overnight stop in Conception we headed to Stella Maris Marina in Long Island to wait out a strong cold front, work on our engine, and catch up on maintenance. We changed the transmission oil, the lift pump, the secondary fuel filter, and the starting battery volt meter; and we got all the air out of the steering system. Even our flat friends got involved.
Our Flat Friends Help Work on the Engine
Anchoring out in the Bahamas is beautiful but occasionally it is good to be in a marina. Stella Maris is safe, friendly, and provides good facilities. One evening Barbara and I went up to the Stella Maris Resort for supper. We had a delicious meal and split two games of pool. We played so poorly that neither of could be accused of “a misspent youth.”
On Tuesday Mrs. Ruth Smith picked us up to visit the Glinton’s Primary School, the northernmost school on the island. Mrs. Smith is committed to the environment and has strong feelings about providing exposure for her students. Her husband, Delbert, is a bonefish guide.
On Thursday we moved down to the southern anchorage in Salt Pond to have some privacy and be near the turtles. We tagged a couple of more turtles in Salt Pond and on the weekend tagged five healthy green turtles in Gray’s Bay off Pratt’s Hill. Last year we searched the same habitat and saw no turtles, so it was a heartening day.
The next week was academic. We rode the school buses back and forth to the NGM Major’s High School and Lower Deadman’s Cay and Mangrove Bush primary schools. It was fun to meet the students outside of class and to chat with the drivers. As life-long sailors, we were excited to meet Zoe Cartwright in Mangrove Bush who has started a junior sailing program in Optimus dinghies. Our grandchildren are now sailing in Optimus dinghies in Newport.
Happy Teachers Make a Happy School:
Lower Deadman’s Cay Primary School
Wednesday night we moved FOXY LADY up to Simms so we could visit the North Long Island High School and Simms Primary on Thursday afternoon. Barbara took Flat Stanley to Simms Primary, and I gave a presentation on fisheries management at the North Long Island High School.
Friday morning we went ashore to collect two flat friends at Simms Primary; and Raymond Gibson, the Principal of Simms Primary, read us his prize-winning poem about the sand fly. Every man, woman, and child in the family islands has a personal relationship with these tiny monsters.
Why the Sand Flies
Sand Flies are a pest.
They never let you rest,
They crawl all through your hair
And bite anywhere.
Why the sand flies?
They love it when it’s calm,
They are all over your arm.
All through your clothes
Even in your nose.
Why the sand flies?
They are hard to see.
Their sting is like a bee.
You want to hit with all your might,
But they are not in sight.
Why the sand flies?
Windy weather they can’t stand,
They hide in the sand.
Sand is from where they came;
That’s how they got their name.
Why the sand flies?
You would think the storm would drive them away.
Not the sand flies, they are here to stay.
They can survive through thick and thin,
When conditions are right they will bite again.
Why the sand flies?
On Friday morning we moved up to Santa Maria and ran the speed boat down to the flats north of Stella Maris to tag turtles. We caught four greens and called Mrs. Smith on the cell phone to say we would bring the turtles to Stella Maris and tag them with her students if she wanted. “How long do I have to get there?”
Half an hour later Mrs. Smith arrived, and the bodies just kept climbing out of her van. They all helped us tag the turtles and reinforce what we had taught them the week before.
Glinton's Students with Green Turtle
When we went back to the flats on Saturday we carried Demron Sands from Glinton’s Primary and Zoe Brennen and Vernalia from the Simms High School. We tagged four new green turtles. We saw plenty more, but it was too breezy to catch turtles in the deeper, western part of the habitat. The turtles looked especially healthy, and the population seems to be growing.
Zoe and Vernalia with Green Turtles
Demron with Tagged Green Turtle
On the way back to Calabash Bay, Barbara and I passed close to the western shore of Hog Cay and were lucky to see a large flock of whistling ducks (Dendrocygna arborea). There are said to be more whistling ducks in Hog Cay than anywhere in the Bahamas.
Whistling Duck in Flight off Hog Cay
Sunday afternoon the breeze let down, and we headed out to Conception Island.
Our mission in Conception was to survey the creek and tag all the turtles. The GERONIMO program at St. George’s School has been tagging turtles in the creek since 1984, and much of the data collected have been published by Karen Bjorndal and Alan Bolten at the University of Florida. We want to sustain the long-term demographic studies and monitor the health of the green turtle population. The northern bay habitat, for example, was almost wiped out by fishermen several years ago. Yearly surveys since then suggest that the population is coming back very slowly. Perhaps the men still take the turtles.
March is the best time of year to see the long tail tropic birds in Conception. Every morning the birds fly over West Bay performing their mating rituals. The birds fly in small groups as the males woo the females before the females lay their eggs in the rocks ashore. It is hard to spend more than a day in Conception without seeing great blue herons, great egrets, oystercatchers, and osprey.
One of the Blessings of Conception Island
Tomorrow we leave for Cat Island where we will survey the creeks and visit the schools.
